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Hi Scott, welcome to town! That downpour was a nice demo for summer in Houston. From now to September here's the weather forcast: Hi 98, low 75, 30% chance of isolated showers. What you probably aren't aware of is that 30% doesn't mean the same as it does in other places. No, it doesn't mean...

Scott, You're quite welcome! One other thing that new-comers don't realize is that Houston sprawls over most of Harris county, and county taxes, fees, and auto insurance are high. Many of the suburban communities are now in adjacent counties (Galveston to the south, Chambers to the east, Fort...

Scott, I live in the southeast suburbs, ~20 miles from downtown in the Clear Lake area, by the Johnson Space Center. If you are more interested in the outlying suburbs you'll have a good pick of homes. New home construction is booming just about everywhere 20 to 30 minutes from downtown, so...

Arrgh! Not this again! So, if one has the Adire-built crossovers, does this mean that the +/- layout on the board is incorrect, or is just the paper layout for those building the crossover themselves incorrect. If the schematic is correct, I suppose I could trace the board to see if it...

Bill, I may not have expressed it clearly, but I was actually agreeing with this: I meant that the relatively huge mass of most sub cabinets is going to make spiking redundant, combined with lowered ability to hear distortion at low frequencies. I wouldn't expect spiking to be audible...

I can believe that spikes aren't as important for subs. The cabinet mass is usually fairly significant, so you'd expect good coupling to the floor just from the weight. Spikes would be even less useful on downfiring subs, since the drivers produce no lateral motion in the cabinet. The only thing...

Brian, I have a BS in physics and your situation sounds similar to mine. I was originally a music major (French horn and composition) but ran out of money three years into it. I was finally in a position to go back to school after a few years slinging luggage into airplanes and decided to go...

Alex, I'm glad it worked well for you! Sometimes little tweaks CAN make a big difference if you know the physics behind them. Enjoy your sub! Andy

Jack, I read that too. F'ing incredible, the stupidity that hamstrings us in such little ways. Fortunately artists like Pat Rawlings get commissions from other agencies than just NASA. Andy

Mary, Thank you for the kind words. I've had some rough days lately and it's very heartwarming to read those compliments. There's very little that gives me more satisfaction than sharing what I've learned and experienced. If I can help someone understand the real life difficulties and...

Mary, I don't know who'll be flying the arm on STS-114. Since we'll be trying so many new things that take such a huge chunk of crew time, I suspect that there will be two or three operators working in shifts. You are quite correct about the attitude stability. The very early station designs...

Mark, Probably your closest home depot/Lowes type home store. The garden department should have a bunch of square concrete pavers or such that you can use. Andy

Jack, Yes, but we will have to use it on the very first flight. Not the entire maneuver, but we have to perform enough of it to prove that it can be done. So on our first flight we will be moving the orbiter around with the arm, to what extent we still don't know, but it'll be several motions...

Jack, That's exactly how the CEV should be sold. If the administration would aggressively sell the incremental and modular concept, and emphasize that each part is low cost and valuable in its own right, there might be less of the pundit blather that focuses only on this being a lunar and...

Brian, I completely understand your scepticism. When I was first told about this option I wondered what the tiger teams had been smoking. Then I saw the presentations where no idea was discarded and anything that could possibly be done was considered, and I decided it was crack laced with...

Robert, Thanks. Most of the time it feels like working in the bowels of any other disfunctional government agency, but once in a while you can step back from obsessing about whether the simulator is outputting the correct variable and why you get a different answer than last time, and realize...

Alex, My first post in the thread detailed the reasoning behind this approach. In short, if the floor is shaking, that means energy from the sub is shaking the floor and NOT making sound waves, which is what you 'feel' in the LFE. If you eliminate the energy transfer to the floor, all that...

Jack, There isn't much info on the station-based tile repair scenario out there. It's still in development here at JSC by a rather small community, and the test on STS-114 still isn't in any of the official flight timelines. I tried to find a reference to point you to but there's nothing on...

Indeed! Welcome back Julie, and congratulations on a superb job lobbing those landers right on target. Unfortunately you weren't around at Xmas (at least not posting) so I saved some holiday carols for you. Download the MP3s and enjoy. You're welcome in advance. A Very Scary Solstice...

*rimshot* ba-DUM-bum! Goodnight everybody! Don't forget to tip your waitresses!

Great! I can't wait to hear how it turns out. I've been posting to a lot of threads recently about vibration and isolation and was trying to think of a cheap way to cobble together some kind of accelerometer to try and quantify the changes in vibration. Last night I was reading through the...

Alex, yes, the added weight does couple you to the floor more efficiently. That's why once you reduce the vibrations with the weight, look into a an isolation device between the sub and floor. The residual vibration will be converted to heat and you're decoupled from the floor. Something like...

Hey Jack, Officially we're looking at March 2005, but summer is pretty reasonable. The robotic portion of the requirements is really killing us. We just finished the critical design review for the arm extension boom and there's still doubt about whether it can structurally handle the loads of...

Daniel, Yeah, but it's paying for my midget porn collection. Thank you taxpayers! Joe, more seriously, think of any scientific endeavor. You need several data points to learn about whatever it is you study. Earth is but one data point in our understanding of how planetary geology and...

Justin, Two thing to consider here to keep the downstairs neighbor happy: Sir Newton and panda thumb audio. Panda Thumb Audio is run by a forum member and sells custom sorbothane pads for vibration absorption tuned to your application. However, you don't want to go there first. The first stop...

Paul, No, there is a difference with bi-amping, and both Scott and Jon make good points. in a bi-amp situation the woofer can draw whatever it needs without effect on the mid or high pass sections. So you won't get tweeter problems if your woofer clips. Be aware however that in a passive...

I fear we don't have enough letters in the alphabet to give names to all the 'planets' we'll find once we can see well into the Oort cloud. "News flash: 457 new planets discovered today, down 32 from yesterday. Astronomers believe this spring should bring an increase by 25% per day as a new...

The definition of 'planet' has been getting murky for a few years now since we now can see further out into the area beyond Pluto and also resolve the many small bodies that are bigger than asteroids and have independent orbits. Once we look at the icy bodies in the outer reaches of the system...

Thanks Scott. And thanks for the link to Dealrush! Andy

Pete, I think I see where you're coming from. Pander was probably the wrong word to use; "conform with market perceptions" is a phrase that best suits. I firmly believe that anything a company writes about it's products is only there because they believe it will increase sales or maintain a...